Everyday urbanism in high-density cities

Abstract

As cities densify, ground space becomes contested, and the collective landscape as a social necessity can get lost. Public space becomes physically and conceptually detached from the community it serves. Where formal space-making processes have favored standardization, small-scale interventions by citizens are able to generate moments of everyday urbanism, self-made places through which community expresses itself. This chapter explores examples, such as the adaptation of roadside railings as vertical gardens and appropriation of underused industrial sites as communal spaces. These loose spaces are typically personal enterprises, yet their common attributes suggest ingenuity and resilience within the multi-layered urban communities that adopt them. They occur in situations of ambiguous ownership, often outside existing land use and building regulation. They are shared and regulated instinctively by users, rather than by prescription, and through that they acquire new meanings and uses of place. Diverse cultural and cross-generational communities are finding collective ground both in the generation and use of such places, suggesting ways that more resilient spaces could be achieved in constrained high-rise environments, relevant to the goals of public health, social well-being, and sustainable urban communities.